The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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572 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM employment. It is indeed conceivable that the changes which were going on in the character of industry aggravated Fluctus- the evil; and that the occasional interruptions of trade ror dn inflicted periods of enforced idleness on weavers and others, oh and thus reduced them to the level of paupers’. However 4) (a; this may be there can be little doubt that the charge which arose in connection with the maintenance of the poor was becoming intolerably severe. Gregory King calculated that the total population was five million, five hundred thousand ; and apparently about a fourth of the total population was more or less dependent on parochial relief’. In 1685 the botal poor rates for England were estimated at over £665,000%; and in the succeeding years, with bad seasons, heavy war expenses and interrupted commerce, pauperism appears to have gone on increasing with rapidity’. It had become obvious that little could be done by planting the poor on the land, and many schemes were now devised for drafting them into industrial employments. This seems to have been specially noticeable in the years succeeding the Civil War, when a good many pamphlets were issued, with proposals for building hospitals and setting the poor at work. Stanley's Remedy, the work of a repentant Elizabethan highwayman, who desired to confer a benefit on the public he had injured, was printed in 1646; Sir John Cooke, —the lawyer who suffered, in spite of his able defence, for his part in the execution of King Charles,—published his Unum necessarium A.D. 1689 —1776. 1 The author of a tract speaks of the poor rate in Elizabeth's time being 6d. « Whereas in our unhappy Days, 3s. in the Pound throughout the Kingdom is not cufficient to sustain them in a poor and miserable Condition more especially in the great Cities, and cloathing Countries ; for in many places, where there is most of our Woollen Manufactory made, the Poor Rate is from half a Crown to six or seven Shillings in the Pound, for the trading Poor have no way nor shelter but ‘heir Trade which if that fail once they are downright Beggars presently, whereas jhe contrary is to be understood of poor Husband-men who have many ways to shelter themselves, as, a Common, a Cow, a Wood, gleaning of Corn in Harvest, Day Work, Children to look after Cows, Hogs, going to Plow, etc. Besides all provisions 40 per cent. cheaper.” A Brief History of Trade in England, 1702 (Brit. Mus. 1138. b. 8), p. 63. * Davenant, Balance of Trade, in Works, mm. 184 and 203. 8 Tb. 1. 41. 4 The figures commonly accepted for 1698 put the outlay at £819,000, but Sir George Coode saw reason to believe that this estimate was based on in- sufficient data. Report to the Poor Law Board on the Law of Settlement and Removal. in Reports, 1851. xxv1. 219, printed pag. 23.

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